In Good Hands
by Haelia
Summary: John and Sherlock are stranded deep in the wilderness with no phones and no foreseeable escape. With John wounded, Sherlock fears they will die here: in the cold, in the damp, in the woods. Prompt fill. Oneshot.


**A/N: For Boxerbee. Please enjoy!**

**Warnings: Language, blood, onomatopoeia.**

* * *

_I do not know what I should do._

Sherlock was frozen. It was a rare thing, alarming, jolting. Frightening. He could feel his hands shaking. A moment ago, he had been ready to die for John, but now his dying would not help John, might very well be his end, and so he was at a loss. He did not know what to do, and John was bleeding, there was so much blood, and Sherlock couldn't feel his fingers anymore, there was a white claw of nausea scraping the lining of his stomach, and his head was starting to spin and –

"You have to let me go to him." Sherlock's voice was thin, gravelly. He stared not at the barrel of the gun inches from his nose, but at the man who stood behind it.

There was no response from the gunman. The wind howled through the trees all around, and Sherlock felt desperation knotting his insides.

"I can't do anything to you, I won't," he insisted as sharply as he could, and it was true: he was unarmed and he was weak with panic. His eyes slid toward the figure of John on the ground. So, so still. "Let me go to him."

"Don't move," the gunman said. "Don't fucking move."

Sherlock's eyes darted over the man's dark form. He was shorter than Sherlock but thickly built, and his fingers wrapped around that gun were trained to use it. There was a tremor in his knees, though, and this belied his nervousness. He was terrified. Terrified that he'd just killed a man, when he was wanted for rape and battery. Those things could land you in prison for a long time. Murder was a life sentence. So what now?

_Click_. That was the sound of the hammer popping forward before Sherlock even realised the man had pulled the trigger.

Out of bullets.

_Fuck._

Their eyes met. Sherlock started to move toward John; the gunman moved toward Sherlock. In a split-second competition of speed and agility, the gap between them was closed, and it was John that Sherlock was looking at as the butt of the gun connected with his left temple, a force that even he could not face and win. He saw it coming, but far too late. His eyes flickered not toward heaven, not toward a God who would not welcome him, but to John. To John, who might be dying if not dead already. To John, whose body they would find next to Sherlock's in some four or five days, maybe a week if Lestrade was stupid about it.

_I am sorry, John. _

* * *

It was the _scritch-scritch-snap_ of a squirrel rifling through the forest floor that woke Sherlock. He lay listening to the sound, trying to piece it together, trying to make sense of the gathering darkness and the damp bed of leaves and the squirrel and the headache. _Scritch_. Far too close. _I'm squirrel food_.

Chilly air filled his lungs as he sat up, suddenly remembering all that had happened. A mad chase through the woods, becoming lost, losing the trail, picking it up again. Another mad chase, and then – and then – and then...

John was still. Scary still. Dead still. Sherlock clawed the damp earth as he pushed himself upright, fighting dizziness to scramble toward him. In the grey light of the sun setting behind a thick curtain of clouds, he could see the black splash of blood on the side of John's shirt where it pooled in the curve of his side. He could see the crystalline breaths hazing the air in front of John's repose-slackened face.

Breathing. Alive. Sherlock tucked his fingers into the hollow beneath John's jaw, feeling for a pulse without really knowing what he was doing. He found one, of that he was certain – but was it fast, slow? He rifled through the card-catalogue of his brain and attempted to dredge up one of the millions of times he'd witnessed John asleep on the sofa. Tried to come up with a number – what was normal for John's respiration, his heart rate? Realised some seconds later that what he was doing was pointless and stupid.

John's voice spoke in his head so clearly that he thought for a moment that his flatmate had woken. _Pressure on the wound. Monitor vitals._ Yes, yes, of course. He reached out with both hands to push John's jacket out of the way and peel back his shirt. Beneath the fabric, Sherlock could see that the bullet had not penetrated. The wound was a graze, but a nasty one at that. Not fatal, if treated properly – he could just imagine John saying it. Proper treatment? They were miles and miles and miles way from the nearest shred of civilisation – forget hospitals and 'proper treatment'. They might as well be lost at sea.

With a _shff_ of expensive cashmere against dry skin, Sherlock shed his scarf, winding it around John's middle like a makeshift pressure bandage. His efforts were clumsy but effective. He was pleased to see that the fabric did not immediately saturate, and he knotted the scarf just over the wound. His hands roamed then, patting John down like a guard frisking a visitor to the palace, trying to examine him by touch for any other injuries and finding very little beside the obvious. Probable concussion, as he'd taken a good, solid blow to the head just after the bullet opened his side. Obviously the reason for his persistent unconsciousness.

Or, _was_ it persistent? Sherlock realised with a start that he had no idea how long he, himself, had been out. What time was it? Instinctively, his pocket swallowed his hand as he searched for his phone, before he remembered: dead. The battery had run down hours before their confrontation with the suspect. John's was sitting at the bottom of a river some miles back. Neither of them wore a watch, of course.

How stupid.

"Huh," said John, as though waking up on the forest floor were merely perplexing and not panic-inducing.

Sherlock jumped – though he'd never admit it – and crouched over John, uncomfortably close to his face, searching his eyes, watching his features contort and relax and furrow in thought and pain and confusion.

"Sherlock," John said, and his friend's name came out on a moan that was more annoyance than pain. _You're very much in my business right now_.

"Good," Sherlock replied, as though John had correctly answered a test question. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Sherlock – "

"No. What's the year?"

"Sherlock – "

"Where do you live?"

"Sher– "

"How old are you?"

"_Sherlock_." The effort of raising his voice sent pain flashing down John's side, and he winced and clutched his hands to the wound in useless reflex. There were stars before his eyes when he opened them, but they cleared in time to see his friend grimace in sympathy and guilt. "I'm fine," he croaked when they had both sufficiently recovered. It was only somewhat true, but he could see the bewilderment in Sherlock's expression. He had no idea what he was doing, and that frightened him.

"He got away," Sherlock said, by way of letting John know they were safe for the time being. He fidgeted with a button on his coat. "Can you walk?"

"Think so." He'd been through worse. There was still a piece of shrapnel buried in the meat of his left calf somewhere, after all. He let Sherlock slip an arm around him, and got all the way to his feet before his knees gave.

Sherlock stumbled under the sudden weight. "John!"

John's other hand shot out, fingers scrabbling at the rough bark of a thick oak to keep himself upright, and somehow the two of them regained their balance. He rested his head against Sherlock's shoulder and drank deep breaths.

Sherlock said nothing, but his eyes were scanning, analysing. Cataloguing. Saving, comparing to previous files.

As his vision jumped and settled, John detected the faint tremble in Sherlock's thin frame. It wasn't that cold out, and a leaden ball sank into John's stomach. "Are you hurt?" he demanded out of the blue.

"What?" The detective blinked. "No."

Fear, then. John had seen Sherlock afraid exactly three times. He still hadn't pinned down the signs that pointed to _Sherlock, afraid_ and he wasn't keen on doing so. He much preferred _Sherlock, arrogant_ or _Sherlock, clever_. Or even _Sherlock, emotionless computer robot thing_.

"We have to try to get to the main road," Sherlock said flatly as he swept a cold gaze over their surroundings.

"Which way?"

He pointed. "That way, I think."

"And what about the suspect?"

Sherlock looked sharply at John. "He got away," he repeated. "I told you."

"Shouldn't – "

"We need to get moving, John," Sherlock interrupted. "Let's go."

* * *

The graze in John's side was not a terrible impairment, due in part to John's very high pain tolerance. He could walk unsupported from time to time – mainly when he needed to have a piss and didn't want Sherlock attached to his hip – and managed to limp along the uneven terrain hooked over Sherlock's shoulder the rest of the time. The thing that continually defeated him, though, was the concussion. Dizziness, drowsiness, and occasional bouts of nausea stopped him at regular intervals, slowing their progress and making Sherlock twitchy.

"You should go ahead, get help, and double back for me," John advised as he sat on a rock, bent nearly in half over a pool of his own vomit. It steamed on the cold bed of leaves.

Sherlock hovered uncomfortably some feet behind. He alternated between wringing his hands and clenching his fists whenever John was indisposed like this. He could not decide if he was more worried for John or more angry at the gunman he had failed to apprehend. Frustrated at his own inadequacy. "It would be impossible to locate you again," Sherlock said. John might be a pragmatist, but Sherlock was a borderline genius. If he felt confident he could _not_ find him again upon leaving him somewhere in the woods, then it was probably true. "It would be the middle of the night by the time I reached anyone. It would take all night to find you again – early morning at the soonest, but probably later. By then you could – " He stopped short.

John sighed. "I'm not dying, Sherlock," he informed him, but his weak voice wasn't terribly convincing. He soldiered through another bout of the dry heaves and hung his head between his knees. He could smell oak and pine and vomit, and it was not a pleasant potpourri. He felt, rather than saw, Sherlock prowling tensely somewhere behind him.

This was all wrong. John could not even remember all the times he had dragged Sherlock back to their flat after a case or in the middle of one, thrown him down on the couch and stitched a wound or iced a sprain or nursed an ill. Contrastly, he could count on the fingers of one hand how many times Sherlock had had to do the same for him. It was a testament to how different they really were – Sherlock impulsive and stubborn and sometimes careless; John practical and careful and dutiful in his planning of action.

"We have to stop," Sherlock announced, cutting through John's thoughts. "For the night. We will get turned around in the dark."

Sighing, John looked up at the darkening sky and then around at the close, damp forest. "Here?" he asked. "We'd do better to keep moving. We could figure out a way to mark our path as we go, so that we don't go in circles, but I don't think it's a good idea to stop. It's freezing, and we'd waste valuable time that we could otherwise be spending actually getting somewhere."

Sherlock looked dubious as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It wouldn't be freezing if we started a fire."

"Everything's wet – we aren't starting any fires here."

It was a fair point. Sherlock sighed and fished his phone out of his pocket. He pushed the power button, watched the screen light up for all of a second before blinking out again. _Lestrade will have given up the chase by now_, he thought, _and instead begun looking for us._ If they kept going, perhaps there was a chance they might run into the search party. It would be a small group – Lestrade and a couple of his people, as well as whatever volunteers he might have rounded up from the nearest village – but Sherlock was certain Lestrade would have formed a party, and would be searching. _He knows I never keep my phone off for long, and the lack of communication from either of us would have worried him._

"Does your head hurt?" John asked, his eyes flicking toward the growing bruise on Sherlock's temple.

Sherlock shrugged. "No."

"Then we should keep going. Lestrade – "

"I know. I was thinking the same thing." The leaves rustled dully underfoot as Sherlock crossed the distance between them, holding out a hand to help John up from his rock. "You're right," he concluded. "How will we mark our path?"

John stood and leaned against Sherlock as he thought about it. With his free hand, he patted down all of his pockets and finally extracted a small pocketknife – two-inch blade, mother of pearl handle, spring action – from his inside jacket pocket. "With this," he said. "We can cut a mark into trees we pass."

"Do you always carry that?" Sherlock asked in surprise.

"No. I bought it in a tourist shop before we left the village." John's voice was buoyant with the hint of amusement. "If I had known we were to be facing off with a murder suspect, I might have bought a bigger one."

"Quite right," Sherlock agreed with a grim twitch of the lips.

"Will we notice the marks in the dark, you think?" John gestured with the knife toward a nearby tree.

"Only one way to find out." Leaving John propped against an aspen, Sherlock sauntered toward a thick tree and began hacking away at the trunk. Hack, hack, hack. John stared with satisfaction at the slice of new, white bark that appeared under the knife's blade.

* * *

"No, you have to tie it tighter."

"I can't."

"You can. Wrap your little girly fingers around and pull. Pull hard."

"No, I mean." There was a sharp hiss as Sherlock exhaled through his teeth.

John rolled his eyes, but Sherlock didn't see it in the dark. "Just think of all the times I've sunk a needle into you. Sherlock, tie the damn bandage off."

Sherlock gave a grunt of disapproval but attempted – again – to do as he was told. He knew very well that it would put John in a lot of pain, and he was surprisingly reluctant to do so, especially considering all the times John _had_ stuck a suture needle into Sherlock's skin. This was a hurdle John had not been expecting to have to face. Normally, Sherlock could be counted upon to do what needed to be done, regardless of the immediate consequences. That he was holding back now was bothersome and inconvenient, as John did not have the strength to do it himself.

Without warning, Sherlock tugged on the fabric at both ends, making swift work of a fat knot over John's side.

The pain was abrupt and intense. John threw his head back, his fingers digging into Sherlock's shoulder as he breathed through clenched teeth – shallow, ragged ins and outs that seemed difficult and forced. Sherlock, for his part, was frozen awkwardly at John's side, the ribbon of his ruined scarf in his lap and his hands hovering uncertainly above the new bandaging.

"Nice work," John choked in a strained voice when he had recovered somewhat. He hung his head and pulled in keening breaths. The dark was sufficient to disguise his pallor.

Sherlock hummed in the hollow of his throat. It bothered him in a deep and very human way to be the cause of John's pain. Normally he was not so squeamish. He had tricked, deceived, abandoned, and drugged John in the past, but always the situation was under his control and the damage was minimal. That this was not seemed to disturb him to his very core.

John's eyes wandered up from the forest floor, skimming Sherlock's drawn face in the dark. "What?" he croaked. "What's wrong with you?"

"I don't like it."

"Don't like what?"

Out of nowhere, Sherlock's expressive eyes shut down again – blank, dark, unreadable. He stood swiftly. "Nothing."

* * *

Their stomachs were growling by the time the moon rose between the boughs of the trees. Sherlock left John panting on a stump and pulled fat blackberries off a tree that seemed to be dripping with them. They ate them together, staining their fingers and teeth purple with the juice. John noticed, somewhat vaguely, when Sherlock seemed to continually drop more berries into his hands and yet only nibble at a few himself. He knew without asking the reason why. Sherlock was still technically on a case, and brainwork came well before basic needs. Still, John prodded him.

"Eat," he urged. He offered a wry smile in the ghostly moonlight. "What if you have to carry me?"

Sherlock blinked owlishly. He wondered if he could. He was tempted to throw John over his shoulder right now, just to find out. He refrained because he knew it would be terribly painful for the one being thrown. "_You_ eat so that I don't _have_ to carry you," he countered.

They both popped another handful of berries into their mouths.

Sherlock took out the pocket knife and began digging away at a dark-barked tree. When the tender flesh beneath was exposed, the mark practically glowed in the silvery moonlight. He made recognizable characters on each tree he chose to mark: an X here, a J or an S there, sometimes a smile face if John was very busy with being ill. He was slowly becoming a tree-carving artist.

"Ready?" prompted the consulting detective, once his work was done. He brushed shavings of tree flesh from his clothes.

* * *

John began weakening in the wee hours of the morning. Sherlock estimated that they were more than halfway back to the main road, and said so, when he noticed that his side was soaked with sweat – John's. He had not noticed the pyrexia coming off his friend in waves, too concerned with _move, walk, go_. Now, however, John's steps were stuttering, his head dipped in frequent lapses of consciousness, and his skin was wet and clammy with perspiration.

Sherlock said nothing. Stopping was not an option – he couldn't keep John warm or safe in these unpredictable conditions, and their gunman was still out there somewhere. Instead he quickened his pace, willing aching muscles to work, tightening his arm around John's body. He murmured quiet assurances, the way John had done so many times in the past. "Keep going" and "almost there" and "that's it". He pulled some obscure psychology reference out of the dusty recesses of his mind palace and called John by his titles: Doctor or Captain, depending on how out-of-it he seemed. (The reference – _Motivate the wounded or morale-weary soldier by reminding him of his duty, of his station. Address him by his rank and _order_ him to continue in his appointed task. _Outdated and cruel, but terribly effective.)

Around two-thirty in the morning, John's knees hit the dirt. Sherlock's did too, as he lost his balance under the sudden dead weight, and as they both tumbled into the mud and the leaves and the creepy-crawlers, a surprised noise escaped his throat, halfway between a grunt and a cry, which he stifled immediately. He levered himself upright and turned John roughly onto his back, one hand flying to a pulse point while the other covered John's chest, waiting for the small rise-and-fall of his breathing, the flutter of his heart. Both arrived promptly and with comforting steadiness, and Sherlock shook him to wake him.

John roused for less than half a minute. "Sorry," he mumbled as his eyes rolled back again. Out cold.

Sherlock chewed the inside of his cheek. They were both shivering now. It was too cold to stop. There would be no hope of a fire – especially not if those were storm clouds moving in above – so their only option was unchanged: keep moving.

Clumsily, Sherlock hefted John over his shoulders in a firefighter's carry. John didn't utter a sound and Sherlock stumbled forward. _This isn't so bad,_ he thought. _I can keep this up_.

He could not keep it up. Less than half a mile later, he was driven to his knees by exhaustion, by the headache that had finally caught up with him, by hunger and dehydration and John's limp weight. He lay his friend down on the forest floor and sat down hard beside him. Sherlock's eyes were wide, panicked, animal. "Lestrade," he whispered at the moon. He wished he had a signal flare.

"Go." The utterance was tiny, less than a whisper, barely a breath. John's eyes were still closed, but he was frowning as though that miniscule word had taken all of his concentration. "Just... gonna... sleep..."

"Shut up," Sherlock snapped. He bit his bottom lip and watched an inexplicable smile flicker over John's mouth.

"Go."

"No."

And just like that, it was over. All the rigidity of effort left John's body and he was out again. Sherlock gulped a breath and climbed to his feet, sick and dizzy and _tired_. Shedding his coat, he spread it over John, doing his best to shut his body down and ignore the wet chill that rolled over him after the wool had left his shoulders. The blood-soaked scarf hung limply from his neck – a gift he could not part with, despite its being beyond repair. His eyes were on the white, glowing sliver of moon.

"Lestrade will find us," said Sherlock aloud. "He'll know where to look. He'll come this way. He'll find us." John's word echoed in his head: _Go_. If he went, what then? He'd make it a few more miles and collapse from exhaustion, from the blow to his head? He fingered the knife in his pocket. If the suspect happened to come back this way – unlikely but not impossible – he could not defend himself with a pocketknife. Nor a wet stick.

This was the type of situation John would be good with. He would pull out some obscure survival tip and chew a leaf to regain some energy or dull the pain, and they'd be off again. Something, something, there had to be something.

Slowly, Sherlock gravitated back to John, sat down beside him. His hand slithered beneath the blanket of his coat and pressed into John's arm, feeling the warmth of his flesh through his shirt. The other hand was holding his mobile without remembering ever taking it out of his coat pocket. His thumb depressed the power button again, and he watched with detachment as the screen came to life. This time it stayed on for a second and a half before winking out. Darkness. Blackness. A dead end. He tossed the thing at a passing mouse, and the rodent scurried away with a squeak of protest.

The moon sank behind an ancient oak.

Sherlock's head came down, slowly as if through water, and rested upon John's chest. He heard and felt the _woosh_ of air going in, going out. Steady and reliable. _I just need a moment_, he thought. _Then I will... do... something..._

* * *

He did not remember falling asleep. He had not intended to fall asleep. All he'd really wanted, all he'd really needed, was a moment – just one – to collect himself. To breathe. To gain control of an uncontrollable situation. After that he would have found a way to start a fire, something, anything that might help their situation just a little.

_Scritch-scritch-snap_. Squirrels again. Leaves rustled, trees hummed in the breeze. Birds sang. The air smelled like morning, cool and damp. Rain misted his face and neck and its sweet scent curled around him. Morning rain, cloying and saccharine. Cut with cigarette smoke – not recent but the sort of stale, dull tobacco smell that clings to hair and clothes hours and hours after the butt has been extinguished.

Strange.

Warm, dry hands shook him awake, turned his face, pried him away from John. Sherlock came to his senses and started violently, throwing off the hands and clinging to John, swatting away the intruder, sucking on sugary morning dew and acrid tar smoke.

"Sherlock, stop." Lestrade's voice was calm but wearied, groggy from sleeplessness.

Grey eyes snapped open. Sherlock's vision focussed, shifted, vibrated, refocussed. Brown eyes were staring down through him, at John, and Greg's warm voice – _warm_ – was calling for paramedics, prying Sherlock off to get a better look at the hackjob of the consulting detective's first aid attempts. Sherlock allowed himself to be pulled away and sat down in a mess of wet undergrowth, watching with dinner-plate eyes as Lestrade bent over John, talking softly to him. John's eyes flickered once, twice, then closed again, and Sherlock was suddenly aware of his own breathing. In, out. In, out. In... out. He strained to hear Lestrade's voice, watched his lips move as he addressed John in gentle tones.

"Got you," he was saying. "I've got you."


End file.
